


Trip and Fall

by ShadyQuiet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Artist!Derek, Beta shifted sex, Comedy and Feels, Dimension hopping/travel, Girl!Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!Stiles, Knotting, Magical Tattoos, Meddling nemeton, Multi, Public Sex, Werewolves as pets, couples counselling, dub con/non con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyQuiet/pseuds/ShadyQuiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sure, Stiles and Derek were known for having some more bizarre run-ins during their time in Beacon Hills, but this time the nemeton was taking things to a whole new level. Hell, a new stratosphere!<br/>With profoundly pathetic instruction from the sadistic, conniving, magic tree itself, Stiles and Derek are thrown into a weaving, reality tripping adventure through alternate times and universes. Their only clue to get home; the whispered words of 'keep finding each other' as the nemeton waves them on their wandering way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This little foray into Teen Wolf territory is for the Teen Wolf Glompfest.  
> Thank you to my friend Moonglaze for the awesome last minute beta-ing!
> 
>  **PROMPT:** Hmmm... There are so many tropes that I love! How about dimension-hopping sterek falling in love as they try to get home, including some filthy nemeton-made-them-do-it shifted knotting, and perhaps a set of soul-bond tattoos picked up along the way? If you can include a temporarily genderbent Stiles at some point along the way that would be AMAZING. If the author could also include their own versions of sterek (as in their own previous fic) among the dimensions visited that would be ideal as well! Really the dimension-hopping is the main prompt if the rest isn't doable. Think like an unintended, super-weird, inter-dimensional sterek road-trip.
> 
> I hope this fits the bill friend! I haven't posted any other Teen Wolf works, but a few things in here are snippets based on stories that are currently in progress and may get posted. I had a lot of fun with this so thanks for the great prompt!

[](http://imgur.com/OaKZ433)

 

Expecting to see Derek in a dusty Mexican Museum had been the last thing Stiles had, well, expected.

Especially when there was nothing supernatural involved, save for the potential cut off branch of the nemeton he’d come to investigate. Especially when he’d just turned up here on a whim whilst on holiday with his _dad_ who happened to be trying to sweet-talk Melissa McCall in an excruciatingly round-about, backtracking, double bluff kind of way in the back ground.

But there they were. There _Derek_ was.

Stiles felt that he could be excused the garbled death of a noise that came out of his throat.

The initially vacant stare when they’d first locked eyes over the gnarled branch both men had been reaching to touch was lost as Stiles spluttered and flung himself in Derek’s general direction. A look of pure alarm graced the wolf’s face for a moment as Stiles tripped over his own feet.

 _Oh crap_.

Stiles grabbed onto the two first hand holds he could get; the branch and Derek’s arm as the man’s hand shot out to catch him, also holding the stick because they were both going down-

The crack that wrought the air seemed to go right through Stiles, reverberating shocks of pain up and down his arm. Wind rushed up and closed on them like a vacuum and he couldn’t breathe but he could feel Derek clinging onto him and held on right back.

Trapped in the typhoon from nowhere Stiles flailed again when his feet left the ground, clutching the wolf with a not-quite as bruising grip as the man used on him as the wind dissipated. Weightlessness gripped them for a second. Gravity won overall and brought his body slamming back down into the earth with a ripping pain as Derek slipped away.

“Ohhh man that sucks.” 

_‘Keep finding each other.’_

Whispered words from nowhere had Stiles shooting to sit upright. The Museum was gone. His Dad’s poor flirting down the phone to Melissa in the background was gone. In front of him was no Derek. No branch that he had dragged his Dad to see thinking it was a cut off of the nemeton.

There was a shard of wood and a bamboo maze.

His fingers automatically curled around the wood on the dusty floor, looking down the long straight corridor he could see that had turn offs at every few meters. The way behind him was a dead end. Above only star-specked sky glimmered down but somehow the maze remained light enough to see.

 _‘Keep finding each other.’_ The whisper rolled in his head again, and Stiles’ shock-still heart thumped a bit faster, brain whirring into action.

“Derek? Find Derek?” _Who else_  
[](http://imgur.com/B1qxilE)

Following his left hand was serving Stiles well. In getting him absolutely nowhere fast. He’d left a few marks on specific corners with his trusty sharpie to indicate where he’d been, and so far not run into any of them.

That was nice and all, but Stiles wasn’t discounting the likelihood of the maze just erasing anything he tried to change about it.

His watch said he’d been walking for hours. There was no sign of Derek. His feet ached and blisters were becoming a major background concern.

“Maybe it’s another dream. What are the chances of running into Derek in Mexico anyway?” The probability this was a dream weighed heavily on Stiles as he continued to silently creep through the maze. Derek might not even be looking for him. _Keep finding each other_ , the maze had said.

The more Stiles thought about it the more frustrated it made him.

Sure, he and Derek would run into each other all the time in Beacon Hills. And finding him by chance in a museum was freaky, yeah… But he still didn’t like thinking that somehow those events were fate-conspired. He couldn’t even say why the concept annoyed him so much. It just did.

If fate was the truth, why hadn’t Derek returned to good ol’ BH? Except for the lack of anything left for him there. Apart from the pack and friends he’d left behind.

Stiles paused and sighed heavily. His feet ached and if his watch was to be trusted he’d been walking for three hours, though the sky above hadn’t changed. He was tired and worried and pushing back at any resemblance this had to being possessed. Feeling out of control.

“Derek’s probably not even here.”

The wood shard dug into his hand and Stiles pictured the base of the nemeton in front of him, always a familiar and haunting image. Last time he’d been lost to the uber-super-natural like this, Scott’s howl had pulled him out.

But there was no Scott now, and Derek wasn’t howling. Or if he was Stiles couldn’t hear it. They wouldn’t count as pack now anyway would they? Had they ever?

By the end, it had felt like they had though. Stiles had clung to that, sometimes.

 _What the hell_. Stiles cupped his hands around his mouth, threw his head back and howled best he could – not the mocking ‘aroo’ he would sometimes answer Scott with. The call was devoid of echo like it had been smothered. Then the creaking started.

Jumping at the vibration under his hand Stiles moved away from the bamboo to feel it rattling, the thick pipe-like plants clacking together and trembling.

“What the-whoa!” Stiles covered his face as in front of him the bamboo splintered and burst like a old pipe, tripping over his own feet in the stumble backwards until his ass met the ground with an ‘oof’.

“Stiles.” Derek’s odd, frustrated-relieved voice cut through the sounds of the plant shards click-clacking to the earth. Blinking and stunned the human looked up. Derek stood panting before him, frowning as always and looking like he _hadn’t_ just rocked his way through a surreal bamboo nightmare.

“Derek! Whoa, well, okay! How the hell did you find me?”

“You howled.” Derek looked non-plussed and Stiles grinned obnoxiously. “If you can call it that. Do you know where we are?”

“How could I? I got sucked right in along with you.” Stiles murmured, dusting himself off as he stood. Breathing a heavy, reviving gulp of air Stiles let himself feel relieved, heart calming to its usual slightly fast patter.

“But you were looking at the branch of the nemeton-“

“So it _was_ the nemeton!” Derek’s familiar eye-roll at Stiles’ interruption had him grinning like mad again.

“Yes. You found it, I assume you needed it for something or knew what might happen?” Stiles grimaced.

“Nope, didn’t see the teleport whammy coming. You heard the whispering though right? ‘Keep finding each other’ or something-“ Like Stiles hadn’t memorised or theorised about it for the last three hours. “You know what that might be about?”

“No idea, but we should get moving.” Derek started towards him. “I don’t like this maze any more tha-“

It was the instant Derek touched his arm to grab him into moving along. There was another crack that ratcheted through his bones and the familiar rushing wind from before, the feeling of gravity caught in a paradox as he swore and Derek growled, both of their free arms flying out to cling to the other as the ground left their feet and colours merged into one.

_______

 

“WELCOME! To every pack’s favourite Saturday Night bonding show; Fight For This Mate!”

The booming voice overhead shook Stiles out of his vertigo, blinking to see bright sweeping spotlights. Struggling a little where he stood, the teen found himself strapped in by a harness around the waist to a pedestal surrounded by a glitzy, fake gem encrusted barrier his hands were tied to. 

“What _now_?” He jerked his tethered hands a few times, annoyance building in him. “Fucking kinky tree-“

“Our latest find from the very slums of humanity is One Hundred Percent Human Stiles Stilinski!” Blinding lights swung to illuminate him as a cheer and wolf whistles clamoured in the air. Wincing Stiles tried to look around, brain spinning.

“Aw look at him, that’s right crowd, give it up for the poor doll. Hasn’t had a decent meal in weeks, and look at those clothes!”

“What clothes- _Oh_ my _god_!” Stiles flinched at finding himself clad in nothing but an honest to god loincloth – ratty and patched. Heat flushed through his body. “Hey! You can’t just strip people! What the hell is going on?!”

“Oh looks like we’ve got a feisty one tonight!” The audience boomed with laughter and Stiles tried to catch his furious, embarrassed breath. “Let’s hope our strapping applicant Alphas are up for the challenge!”

The hot lights swung off Stiles and over what looked like an obstacle course to illuminate fifteen mostly familiar alpha werewolves being replicated on a large screen. Derek was right in the middle, scowl for once anything but complacent as he squinted at the light, expression a mixture of panicked and outraged that was almost hilarious enough to have Stiles laughing in panicked bubbles. They were all clad in numbered tank tops, baseball shorts and barefoot. Derek met his flabbergasted gaze in the distance and made some sort of askance, helpless head and hand gesture that Stiles translated roughly as ‘the fuck?’

Stiles, however, had figured it out, even without the announcer overhead filling in the potentially unknowing TV viewer. This was like a dating TV show. Where Stiles was the prize.

Worse than that, amongst the ‘contestants’ were Deucalion and his alpha pack, Peter Hale, _Scott_ , Satomi…

 _Fuck my nemeton-life_. The thought rolled around in his head as a whistle blew and below him the alphas lunged towards the pool they had to swim through to reach the main obstacle course. Derek was momentarily brushed aside and shoved away by the stampede. Stiles’ stomach dropped, seeing Deucalion clear the water and push Scott back in, making good headway into the lead.

The shock cleared from Derek’s face and was replaced with competitive determination. Stiles could only stand there and watch as Derek flashed through the water, body rising up gleaming with clothes sticking to him. A small shiver of pleasure flooded Stiles despite the situation, knowing he had been privy to the sight of Derek soaked before. Still, the rugged, hairy legs on display were helping to ease back his panic. Thank you, biology!

Derek gradually moved up the ranks, clearing nets and Tarzan ropes with skilled ease. Stiles let himself enjoy the show and ignore the gnawing worry. Derek was incredible to watch, even more athletic than he used to be. Whatever transformation he had gone through had clearly paid off in spades.

“And at the end of our first round we have Deucalion in first place! Followed by Derek and Scott-“ At the mention of his friend’s name, Stiles sought out Derek’s panting visage and caught his eyes, making frantic head gestures at Scott. Even from above Stiles could see the exaggerated sassy huff, but couldn’t hear whatever Derek turned to Scott to say.

The teen alpha looked almost affronted and shook his head, stepping away from Derek. Stiles didn’t need the following negative headshake in his direction from Derek to know that they were on their own.

Wherever they were, only he and Derek knew that it wasn’t real. But they’d passed the nemeton’s odd little test; they’d found each other in the maze, why was this still going on? What did it want?

He mulled it over as the overhead announcer continued to list the order of alphas so far and made lewd comments about them to the gleeful audience.

Around the time Kira bounced perkily onto the stage and begun to interview them, Stiles let his head bang down onto the barrier in front of him.

“This shit is bananas.” His moan was answered not in salvation, but in the top 14 alphas moving on to the next challenge; hunting.

Stiles braved one look at Scott mauling a deer released into a pit with him and blanched.

“Oh dude that’s gross.”

[](http://imgur.com/B1qxilE)

Derek was not having a good day. He’d been surprised, shocked really, to see Stiles Stilinski of all people in a museum in Mexico. But the sight of a pack member, however removed Derek had made himself, sent a shot of warmth to his chest with one look at those familiar, expressive whiskey eyes.

Now he was stuck in some sort of nightmare at the nemeton’s whim.

The wolf had experienced a moment of panic when transported into a maze that hadn’t truly lessened until he’d heard Stiles’ ‘howl’. That should have been it; find each other, the answer to Derek’s loneliness over the last few long months. Return to Beacon Hills again, his home… Surely that’s what the nemeton had been telling him?

Instead he was now a star of ‘Fight For This Mate’ and apparently classed, by none other than a guileless Kira, as the ‘dark, brooding type’. It was humiliating, degrading, and so far he’d had to hunt, cook, describe his ‘ideal day’ – a day where he had a pack and didn’t get mauled had been his answer. The crowd had for some reason ‘Awwed’ this – write a small poem about the moon and now had to describe his ideal mate. Derek looked up at Stiles on the podium – still banging his head repetitively against the barrier at regular intervals and looking like lean, pale, ridiculous shark bait – and thought about what he could possibly say that was half true in a room of wolves but also half relevant to Stiles, as surely the aim here was to get to Stiles… again.

“Someone who thinks this is as pointless as me.” Stiles’ snort was audible over the hush of the audience. “Someone who I know has my back, and I have theirs. I like a challenge.” Stiles’ face looked up to meet his eyes, mouth slightly agape for all of two seconds.

“Well sweet talk me stud.” Derek grinned as he heard Stiles’ words even from this distance. “Your way with words Derek I swear to god.” Stiles leaned as far as he could over the barrier and grinned mischievously before bellowing; “Take me to bed or loose me forever!” Derek barked out a laugh, Stiles hadn’t changed; they’d found allies in whatever this was together.

No sooner had he realised the thought and felt a slight level of comfort from his and Stiles’ matching grins that the familiar crack from before sounded throughout the room. The other occupants took no notice as wind swept up around him and a swearing Stiles, dislodging Derek’s feet and hurtling them into the crushing unknown.

________

 

Having pinched his eyes shut against the tempest, Derek startled as a splodge of something hit his shoe. Shoes were different from before, where he’d been barefoot.

Almost hoping to find himself in the museum and simply bleeding yet again, Derek opened his eyes.

“Uhh…” Stiles trailed off awkwardly, looking from his own naked body to Derek’s wide-eyed stare and flushing furiously. The boy was sprawled across an opulent crimson chaise longue, covered only by a blush-rose satin sheet draped artfully over his groin and bent-at-the-knee thigh. Leagues of smooth, creamy skin dotted with biteable moles feasted Derek’s gaze and left him swallowing, mouth watering with the temptation to lick and kiss. Stiles had grown up just _fine_.

“Oh my god-“

“Don’t!” Stiles paused in his frantic attempts to cover himself, blush spreading down his chest as he glared up at Derek’s command.

“ _Why_?!” For a moment, Derek had no idea why, he had barely been aware of barking the command in the first place. His pants felt a bit uncomfortably tight and his skin flustered. He hadn’t seen anyone naked in too many years. And longer still since it was someone he trusted. On a primal level he wanted to drink in the sight, but he tore his gaze away.

“Aversion is not the answer we’re looking for here Derek!”

“The painting isn’t complete.” He growled out hastily, catching on the rather large, detailed and fine renaissance-style painting in front of him. Even the decadent room behind Stiles – full of gold-trim mirrors and thick leafed potted palms, tiled floors and dark wood walls – was painted in. Derek had to swallow again at the portion of the painting that focused between Stiles’ legs, where he, or someone, had taken delicate care to paint the satin draping over the form of a half-aroused cock.

“So what?” Stiles sounded almost savage about it.

“So maybe it’s like the maze, or the, the…”

“Dating show?” Stiles supplied dryly.

“That. Where we have to complete something.” Stiles contemplated this for a minute, hands fiddling absently in the satin in a way that left Derek shifting from foot to foot to ease the strain in his trousers, glaring. Those damn fingers. Stiles had never affected him like this before, although the teen had always managed to get his blood rushing. Usually in aggravation or adrenaline.

“I thought we had to find each other or something, but we’re already both here now, and we didn’t really _find_ find each other last time. We just talked to each other, and we’re talking _now_ so it isn’t that. What do you think is going on anyway?” Stiles turned his gaze on Derek intently.

What was wrong with him? With those eyes as well, it was almost too much. Derek’s gaze trained down to the paint splat on his shoe. Given that the paint was the same bright colour as Stiles’ eyes, it didn’t help much.

“The nemeton’s twisted idea of a good time.”

He began gingerly applying paint at that point, favouring the light and shadow in Stiles’ eyes before moving on to creating depth in his dark hair. He couldn’t resist touching up the playful press of moles along Stiles’ jawbone. Almost like painting them on his actual skin, the kissable trail… to say nothing of the way that another mole rested on Stiles’ hipbone next to his dark happy trail.

“God this is boring.” Stiles complained; fidgeting in a way that left Derek glad he, or someone, had already finished most of the painting.

“Stay still.” Stiles snorted.

“What, so you’re an artist now? Just draw a damn stick figure Derek and lets get out of here… And… Go where, I don’t know. If the nemeton is just having a trippy party they could at least have left instructions on how to play the game.”

Derek let Stiles rant and ramble, watching with some ire as the teen began to flail his hands dramatically. Derek found he could tune out two out of four sentences and still get the general gist of the teen’s concerns.

“And my dad! He’s probably panicking, calling Scott, calling the home guard, threatening the museum staff. I should be getting back there, not sitting here being painted like one of your French girls-“

“Done.” Stiles’ mouth snapped shut as Derek stepped back from the painting critically. He heard the rustle of Stiles wrapping himself in the sheet and soon felt the warmth of his body getting close, flushed from all the attention as if Derek had been running the soft paint brush all over his bare skin.

“Lets see it then- _shah_!” Startling at the sound of Stiles’ punched laughter Derek turned to the bent-in-half teen, satin slipping off broad shoulders. Affronted at the slight to his painting, Derek snarled.

“What?”

“Dude, dude you have _got_ to see what you’re wearing, oh my god, just.” And with firm hands Stiles reached out and turned Derek to face the nearest freestanding mirror. The wolf in him shook its head and cried, cowering into a corner. Derek himself paled.

Ruffles. There were ruffles. All over him.

“Get them off me.” He bit out, and Stiles just bawled in laughter.

“No way this is priceless! Oh man, frills are your thing!”

Growling seemed to be doing nothing to curb Stiles, so Derek pushed him roughly out the way to nothing more than a squawk of giggles and kicked the mirror soundly into the opposite wall, watching it shatter with satisfaction.

“Seven years bad luck.”

“Shut up Stiles.” Derek turned morosely back to his painting, wishing he were far, far away and possibly underground. Now that he was aware of the pantaloons and knee-high white socks under prim clasped plimsolls he couldn’t stop _feeling_ it. Ruffles were tickling his neck.

“Whoa, dude, this is amazing!” Distracted, thankfully, from his misery, Derek turned to see Stiles admiring the painting. “You do actually paint! You’re good!” Honeyed eyes were alight with awe that settled warm and purring in Derek’s chest.

“I studied it, after I left with Laura. It… helped me.” Derek’s voice softened at his own admission and he looked at the painting instead. “I would paint my family, free. It gave me some hope.” A graceful pause caught the air, carrying it without tension until Stiles spoke, hand also finding Derek’s shoulder the way it had so many times before. He’d always been a tactile person.

“Hey, that’s cool… Y’know Scott being turned was one of the best things that happened to me, in a way. I was going nowhere and I was, I didn’t trust myself and then, well I could help all of a sudden. Seemed pretty cool at the time, y’know? Helped me settle a few things I was burying…” Stiles laughed gently, a breath of a thing. “Are we having a heart to heart here?”

“You’re ruining the moment.”

“Nah, I _am_ the moment!”

“You’re profoundly annoying.” But Derek was holding back a smile. They’d both grown, but the banter was as present as ever. He’d missed it, talking to Stiles. The younger man met his half smile with a full on beam and bro-shove to Derek’s shoulder that only moved Stiles. Around them sounded a whip-crack and the wind picked up.

_________

 

Stiles cracked one eye open before the other, shaking his head and becoming aware of something clasped in his hand… and growling, _so_ much growling-

“Oh my- Derek what the hell?” Stiles winced through the words, pained, stepping back from where Derek was kneeling, _naked_ , a woven collar around his neck connected to a silver leash in Stiles’ hand.

“You tell me.” Derek sounded absolutely lethal as he stood up, shining blue eyes cutting into Stiles’ peace of mind.

“What? Hey!” Stiles dropped the leash and backtracked further, not missing how Derek winced with the swing of the lead as if it was a heavy burden, flinching from it touching his skin. “Look see, no leash on Stiles, no siree, nope, absolutely zero desire to run a kinky werewolf dungeon over here!”

“Look around you!” Derek snapped, gesturing violently at the room around them. Stiles gulped, hands still raised and pulse racketing around. The room around them was just as fancy as the last one, except they were in a stonewalled room covered in drapes and thick, ornamental rugs. An immense bed rested in the middle of the room and a screen separated a bathroom from view. They were high up, the windows showing birds flying by in a migratory swathe.

“Okay, so… not a dungeon… Then what-“

“Someone’s coming.” Derek shifted to face the door, claws dropped and fangs showing. Stiles caught a healthy eyeful of Derek’s firm, rounded ass as the wolf turned to face down the door before it opened.

“Wolf free!” Shouted someone dressed up as a guard in shining armour and no sooner could Derek snarl and Stiles frown than five of them had swarmed into the room, clone-like and surrounding Derek with silver pointed spears.

“Stiles!” Derek’s shoulders stiffened and Stiles’ dropped at the familiar panicked voice.

“Dad!” His father pushed into the room; face frantic underneath the heavy gold crown on his head and none other than a very naked Parrish on a leash at his side.

“Parrish-“

“It’s talking!” The guards all tilted their pikes at Derek who growled, Stiles’ Dad opened his un-leash-holding hand to him.

“Stiles, hurry, get over here.”

“What, no.”

“Kneel wolf!”

“Kneel or we’ll make you!” Seeing the spikes getting closer and Derek hunching down to attack, Parrish raising a lip in a snarl in the background, Stiles snapped himself out of his shock.

“Whoa whoa hey!” A clamour broke up the air around him as Stiles pushed through the clone soldiers and stood in front of Derek, hands held out to shield the pair of them from the guards. “Back off!”

“Stiles!” His dad shouted. Angry now, and Stiles’ brain raced to put two and two together. This wasn’t feeling like a dream any more.

“Its fine! Its fine we were, we were…” his eyes lit on Derek’s free swinging leash and Parrish’s clasped tightly in his Dad’s hand. “Training! Just training, um, obedience, stay… that kind of thing… its fine!” With a gutsy sigh his Dad tapped the nearest guard on the shoulder.

“Stand down. My son just needs a lesson in propriety. Again.” The guards shuffled out of the room, though Derek stayed tense and Stiles remained in front of him. His father gestured tiredly at Derek’s lead. “Pick that up Stiles. You know if you’re doing lead-free training the wolf needs to be attached to the wall line.

Stiles glanced behind him at Derek, meeting his eyes and wincing in apology as he reached out and gingerly held the lead. Doing so got him an eyeful of, well, little Derek (who was not so little incidentally) and his flush burned down his thankfully clothed chest. He could feel sweat prickling out on his skin.

“Right, my bad Dad.”

“You’re a Prince Stiles. Its time you acted like it. Now tie him up and come down for the council meeting.”

“Right. Of course, council meetings.” Stiles laughed nervously, his Dad giving him the eye throughout as he left the room.

“You’ve got ten minutes.”

The door shut and Stiles scrambled into action, drooping the lead and scrambling for the nearest dresser to throw some slacks and shirts at Derek. The wolf caught them witlessly.

“Derek come on! We’ve got to get you out of here!”

“Get this collar off me then!”

“Right!” Stiles spun back to the wolf and grabbed roughly at the collar, tugging and twisting. “God _Dammit_! Is this thing made from adamantium?” 

“Get it off!”

“I can’t!” Pausing, panting, Stiles looked around the room for something sharp. A ceremonial sword, a letter opener, a razor? Something! “There’s nothing here! This is absurd, if I’m a Prince I should at least have a dagger… hey, I’m a Prince!”

“Stiles!”

“Right, collar off, on it!”

Except there was nothing. Stiles threw drawers across the room, finery and clothes flying, gutted the bathroom, dragged the rugs into piles and pushed the bedding off the bed, tugged books off the bookshelf.

The room was a wreck he stood in the middle of, panting, not so much as a shard of flint in sight.

Derek was just standing there, glowering like he had when they first met and trembling faintly, he’d put the trousers on at least, though he looked about to burst out of them with the fit obviously tailored for Stiles’ slimmer frame.

“Derek, I,”

“It’s fine.”

“No, no its not!” Stiles laughed brokenly, out of breath and confused out of his mind. “What the hell are we here for?” A knock on the door silenced both of them and left them staring at it in a mixture of aggression – Derek, and panic – Stiles.

“Oh God.”

“Prince Stiles? I’m here to take you to the counsel, is your wolf chained?” Stiles met Derek’s hard eyes before they both looked at the wall chain, a long thing that would allow Derek access to over half the room, but no more than that. Their eyes met again.

“Do it.”

“Derek, no,”

“You don’t have a choice!”

“Prince Stiles?”

“Alright! Alright, dammit.” He fumbled for the chain, trying not to think about animals and the Argents and the torture he’d seen Derek go through and the queasiness that filled him at doing something bad to a friend.

Always, doing something bad.

The chain smarted over his fingers like it was leaving its mark behind on his skin as he clipped it onto Derek’s collar. He couldn’t meet the man’s eyes.

“I’ll be back.” He turned to leave the room. “And I’ll bring a knife.”

[](http://imgur.com/B1qxilE)

Turns out that being a Prince? Really boring. He spent the counsel meeting initially trying to care but getting shut down at every statement. The world they were in worked differently to his own, and Stiles couldn’t care less about crop shortages in an imaginary world. But how were they even in these worlds? How did they get out? Did these places and times keep spinning without them when they moved on?

That led to the awkward realisation that somewhere out there, Stiles might have just been won in a mating reality show. Or that there was a Stiles out there willing to keep Derek chained up in his room like a dog.

He left the meeting, still side-eyeing his Dad as a king, and was dragged to dinner.

“Stiles, keep your elbows off the table, what’s wrong with you today?” His ticked off whisper was all the motivation Stiles needed to subtly thieve several rolls and apples into his pockets over the course of the meal, as well as a wicked looking knife the length of his palm. He absolutely _didn’t_ think about Parrish eating from a bowl on the floor next to his father, butt naked and ignored along with the handful of other supernatural creatures littering the room. Malia was in a corner chained up like Parrish and snarling. To see the girl he’d dated humiliated like that left his guts spinning and he couldn’t eat for guilt.

His throat was too closed up for him to be able to breathe properly by the end, shamed heat running down his spine and hands shaking. Just the idea that some version of him lived here happily, casually just fine with enslaving an entire race and degrading them, probably enjoying it, and the whole world kept laughing and eating, _fuck_.

“May I be excused?” The King shot him a look, but seemed to take in Stiles’ paling skin and shaking hands and change his mind about a denial.

“One of your attacks? I’ll send up the physician.”

 _Some things never change_. Stiles reflected on leaving the room, lost amidst the animalistic crowd of eaters. _Panic attacks and me go hand in hand. Good to know._

Prince of Panic, that title was probably about right for him.

Once out of the banquet hall, Stiles broke out into a run, the exercise didn’t help his already thumping heart, but the distance from that barbaric scene and the cool metal in his hand did.

A few wrong turns and he burst into the room, _his_ room, panting. Derek shot up from where he was slouched, also panting and eyes flashing blue. 

“Get it off, get it off _now_.”

“On it, come here.” The door slammed shut behind him on heavy hinges and Stiles flung himself in Derek’s general direction, the wolf catching him slightly as Stiles’ wild hands went straight for the collar. “Alright, alright, hold still.”

The knife wouldn’t fit between the collar and Derek’s neck so the teen used his hand to pull it away as much as possible, cursing when the knife sliced into his fingers and palm with the force of his harried sawing.

“Hurry up!”

“I’m trying!” Stiles snarled back, getting a good cut in and finally able to slide the knife underneath so that it wouldn’t nick at Derek’s skin. The handle was slippery and Stiles grabbed what room was available on the blade to work it up and down, knocking Derek’s chin out the way with a clack of the wolf’s jaw being snapped shut. And that was wrong too, Stiles shouldn’t have been able to hurt him at all-

Knocking on the door froze his efforts, Derek’s hands tightening to bruising levels on his waist.

“Prince Stiles? Is everything alright?”

“ _Deaton_?” Stiles turned to meet Derek’s eyes, the wolf’s lip raised in a growl and hands tightening. Without needing to be told Stiles began sawing again and finally felt the collar give-snap!

Stiles all but collapsed onto his knees, Derek pushing him down and behind as the door opened and he roared at the face of Deaton that had just appeared looking for once shocked. Stiles just tried to catch his breath and not throw up as the adrenaline crashed and left him shaky and foggy.

“… You two, are not from this time are you?” Stiles turned a bit at the words, squinting at Deaton through Derek’s legs.

“Leave!” Derek snarled, voice contorted by teeth.

“You should move on soon, hurry.” There was a moment of pause as Deaton turned to leave before Stiles was clawing himself up on Derek’s handy legs and the wall, a ‘Wait!’ dying out of his throat as the good doctor shut the door on them.

“Helpful.” Stiles complained, barely standing under his own shaky volition with the wall at his back and taking in Derek. Bare-chested and using his clawed hands to cut his own palms, teeth out, eyes shut and shaking. “Hey, hey big guy, you alright?” Stiles reached out to tap Derek’s shoulder a few times but was met only with the shake of his head and a wolf-like whine. “Whoa, okay, you need to sit down or, or a drink?” Derek growled lowly. “Want me to shut up? Leave?”

“No! Just,” The rest was lost to a growl. Stiles pushed off the wall, pain smarting from his hands, taking a few cautious steps forwards.

“Okay, hey, you’re alright, breathe for me Derek, okay?” Gently Stiles moved closer and wrapped his own shaking arms around Derek’s trembling frame, hoping Derek was as in need of a hug as he looked and falling silent as his hands met, pinkie and thumb touching as they spread on Derek’s shoulder blades and under his neck, tucking his chin over the man’s shoulder.

Warmth from Derek flooded through him and Stiles let his eyes close in relief, a sharp breath leaving him and breathing easier, fatigue wrapping around him. It took a few shaking minutes, but Derek’s arms eventually mirrored his own. The older man ducked his face into Stiles’ neck and breathed there as the last of the tremors left.

Stiles let himself be drawn closer and adjusted his own hold to do the same, feeling the warm flex of Derek’s muscles under his hands as the wolf’s own held him round the waist.

In that hold the world cracked and rushed around them.

 

_____________

 

“Oh come on!” Stiles shouted before the wind let up, Derek gone from his touch again and bright lights blinding him as he opened his eyes. The corridors were stark and plain save for the double doors at the end that flew open soon as Stiles lay eyes on them.

“I swear to God- _fuck_!” Derek was all snarl and fight strapped down onto a stretcher with a pipe driven through his stomach.

“Doctor! We’ve got a Caucasian male, impaled wound to the abdomen, swear the dude must be on PCP or something-“

“ _Jackson_?” Stiles spluttered, eyes roving over the scrub-clad former member of his Lacrosse team.

“Yes, Stiles, now come on! This one’s urgent!”

“Uhm, what?” Derek, from the stretcher, raised his _pissed off_ head up and glowered at Stiles.

“Look at your outfit idiot!”

“My…” Stiles looked down, finding himself in a lab-coated, tie-clipped, croc-wearing nightmare. “Oh my God.”

“Doctor, _Stiles_ ,” He looked up, holding hands away from himself as if to surrender to this whole thing. White flag, tactical treat, belly-up over this whole little trip into twilight land. Jackson was in front of him, moving forwards. Stiles stumbled back and the man’s hands gripped onto his distinctly less-impressive biceps and squeezed in a way so gentle it shocked Stiles still. “Are you okay?”

“Um, what?” Stiles repeated, throat feeling tight and pulse racing at the way Jackson’s eyes seemed to flash over his face, frowning and half-pouting in concern.

“It’s okay babe, you got this. You’re the best damn Doctor in this wing of Mercy.”

“Oh, right well that’s-mmph!” Jackson’s lips were on his _Jackson’s lips were on his_ and they were kissing and.

“Isn’t anyone going to _help me_?” Stiles burst back away from Jackson with a flail and a shout of “Right!”

Jackson wheeled Derek into the room properly and backed away with a smirk and pouted kiss at Stiles.

“I’ll go prep the team.”

“Yeah you, you go…” Stiles responded with, voice as sultry as he could make it and cocking finger guns at Jackson. Soon as the man smugged his way out of the room Stiles was ‘bleh’ing and rubbing his mouth on his coat. Derek looked similarly nauseated, face drawn as if looking for great depths of serenity from never before reached places within him.

“We need. To get out. Of here. Now.” Derek announced, voice slow and angry with all the grumbles.

“Yeah yeah, I got the memo, hell I _wrote_ that memo.” Stiles hurried over to Derek and reached out to remove the pipe that was no doubt impending healing. “How’d this even happen anyway?”

“No idea. I woke up like this- what’s wrong with your hands?”

“My hands? Wha-“ Stiles’ heart thumped in his chest echoingly as he ceased to breathe. His shaking hands in front of him were covered in latex gloves. Under that, they were bloody and _red_.

Panicked words flooded his mind a breath strangled through his throat like a punch. Hunched over Stiles spun around, vision doubling and the feeling of a sword in his hands, coach’s body beneath them swamping his mind. Feverishly his eyes lit on a sink and Stiles lunged for it, ripping off the gloves and wrenching the tap on full.

Someone was chanting, the words ringing in his ears as ‘no no no no no,’ over and over.

It was only when the blood had washed off, revealing the cuts he had caused himself when freeing Derek from the collar, that he collapsed heavily against the counter, realising the dying mantra was his own as it stopped.

“Oh thank god, fuck, _fuck_.”

“Stiles!” the shout jolted him from the adrenaline crash and he turned to see Derek staring at him, wide-eyed and horrified.

“Sorry, yeah I’m, um, just give me, sorry.”

“Your hands.” Derek was looking at the sluggishly bleeding cuts with his own nauseated look now, as Stiles followed his gaze.

“It’s nothing, um. I’ll help you get that-“

“Put some damn bandages on those, Stiles, for the love of god.” The aggressive order and curse had him shooting his head up.

“Hey it’s not like I’ve had any time for freaking first aid as we time-warp our way around TV’s most popular tropes!” He hissed. Derek closed his eyes, possibly searching for that inner peace again, and clenched his hands before releasing them.

“Deal with your wounds, before I cut off your hands.”

“Fine!” Stiles stomped around the room, upending it, hoping that Jackson was far far away and ignoring the half tingle, half sickly feeling on his lips. “You’d think a hospital would have, aha!” Victorious in finding himself some bandages, Stiles dedicated a hot minute to wrapping up his sliced hands without looking at them too much and then returning to Derek, wiggling his half-visible fingers. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.”

“Alright Cujo. Deep breath.” Derek complied, tensing. Stiles wrapped his hands around the pole and kept an eye on Derek, ignoring the squishing sound as the pole moved around slightly. _Swallow down that bile, Stiles, no need to throw up on your tetchy werewolf friend._

“Three, Two, _ONE_!” Stiles threw his weight into pulling the pipe out and Derek made a choked, wretched snarl-yelp and grabbed the pipe, pulling out what Stiles could only drag upwards slowly. The force sent him wind-milling backwards, pipe clanging bloodily off the floor with a spray of red. Derek howled, fists elongating into claws that cut straight through the stretcher’s padding, fur sprouted on his cheeks and the wolf’s eyes blazed blue as he roared.

“Hey whoa whoa whoa! Derek no wolfing out!” Stiles hissed, moving closer to the bed despite his better judgement. Derek panted through his teeth and snarls, eyes flashing to Stiles half pained, half panicked.

“I’m trying!”

“I thought pain kept you human?” Stiles prompted, half hoping the reminder might kick-start Derek’s well-hidden Budda-ness.

“I said I’m trying!” Despite the snapped assurance, it took Derek a good five minutes to calm himself down. The older man released a shaky breath and looked to Stiles as his face returned to all-human stubble, nodding. The human hurried to untie him, unable to think of a thing to say. He’d rarely seen Derek out of control and it made him uneasy to think about it.

Silently Stiles undid the straps, just untying the last ones as Jackson pushed through the doors in a rush, a whole crew of scrubs behind him… All people from the Lacrosse team?

“What-“

“Oh, come on! How on Earth did Greenberg make it to medical school?!” Stiles’ complaint was lost as the scrub-nation busted forwards with wide eyes on Derek and the wolf-man himself pushed Stiles back and locked eyes with Jackson, snarl on his lips. Derek’s hand shoved back at him and Stiles automatically reached to grab his shoulder and around them the world cracked, Stiles’ stomach sinking along with it.

_Here we go again._

_____________

 

It was only as Stiles found himself crashing TARDIS style into the glass door of ‘Derek’s Danishes’ that his stomach remembered to be human. The grumbling combined with Stiles’ head rush from their beam-up and the adrenaline crash from whatever the hell was going on.

The sense of his organs eating themselves sent Stiles hurrying into the cracked glass door. Ignoring several disgruntled customers and stomping straight to Derek in an-

“Is that an _apron_?” Derek glowered, dumping about a glass of sugar into some lucky woman’s coffee. Really the apron wasn’t that important in the face of his imminent death by starvation. “Doesn’t matter. Serve me up something hot stuff.”

“Hot stuff.”

“Or, cold stuff, y’know, just give me some food!” Attempting to lunge over the counter to grab a pastry only ended with Derek pushing Stiles back by his face. He was given a plate of food though so all was not lost.

“You want a drink with that?”

“Oh, yeah, sure!” He looked up in time for Derek to dump the ingratiating apron on his head.

“Go get it yourself then.”

“But-“

“You’re hired, get behind the counter.”

“You can’t just-“

“My Danish place, my rules. Go serve happy customers.”

Grumbling Stiles grabbed the apron and stuffed the rest of the pastry in his mouth.

“Me and you?” He started as Derek moved to sit back in the kitchen. “We’re gonna need to figure this out. Now. Pronto. Hell _yesterday_ , hi! What can I get for you?”

But they didn’t sort it out, not in the slightest. Not until Stiles had broken the foamer machine and unleashed a sudsy torrent all over the counter and floor. And himself. Derek laughed hard enough in a barked burst that he doubled over, Stiles startling and foaming up his already bandaged hands before he accepted that actually Derek’s laugh wasn’t half bad. Only _then_ did the coffee shop vanish around them.

______________

 

He thought this game couldn’t surprise him anymore, but when Derek opened his eyes to see Stiles dressed in a plaid dress with cowboy boots on that Lydia would have been proud of, and very clearly sporting the body and scent of a girl, his lungs threatened to explode in a fit of hysteria. His laugh was so loud that Stiles flinched and swung to him fully.

“Well at least we know it’s not you laughing that does it.” Stiles had a pixie crop. Derek thought he was dying. Happily. “What? Hey come on man-“ Breathless with laughter and belly aching, Derek spun Stiles around towards the mirror. “Holy- fuck! _Oh my god_ what the hell?!”

Stiles’ initial panicked flail away from the mirror - Derek didn’t let him get out of sight of himself - turned into curiosity, leaning back in and running a hand up his stomach to-

“Don’t grope yourself!”

“Why not? I’m a girl and I can… wait.” Derek’s face burned as Stiles’ hand dropped down to between his, her? his? Legs.

“Stiles!”

“It’s gone.”

“What?” But Stiles had blanched white and Derek could guess.

“Oh my god!” There was true hysteria in Stiles’ voice now and the teen began tearing at his clothes, fighting out of the dress.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Derek hissed, looking around the… bedroom, familiar, Stiles’-but slightly rounder around the edges-bedroom as if for intruders. Anything to distract himself from the pale swathes of skin and moles being revealed to him again and sending heat flaring up his spine. He didn’t need to see that. Wanted to, but didn’t need to. Dammit that wasn’t a path he wanted to go down right now, especially with lady-Stiles in front of him… Part of Derek longed for the real thing and the rest was focused on Stiles’ state of increasing undress.

Stiles had the dress off, the movement dislodging one of his/her pert breasts from a rather raggedy looking bra and shoving a hand into his pants before Derek took action.

“Stiles _Stop_!” Grabbing the kid’s arm Stiles looked up with wide, wild eyes and long lashes that weren’t too dissimilar from his normal ones and moles for days…

Their eyes were still locked and Stiles’ hand was still in his laced underwear as the door opened.

“Hey! Get your hands off my daughter!” Derek ripped himself back as if electrocuted and Stiles sputtered and yanked clothes over himself as the Sheriff’s handgun was levelled in Derek’s face.

“Dad, wait, no, I can explain-“

“Sweetheart I really don’t want to hear it. You, out.” Derek went as Stiles flopped down onto the bed in mortification. Secretly though a flush of smug amusement and possession swept over him, leaving Derek with a smirk as he walked hands-up out of the house prepared for ‘The Talk’ only to have the reality splinter around him.

______________

 

Derek opened his eyes to look around. Down, far, far down below him… Stiles was in an oversized jumper and tiny, his skin pink and plump with youth. Slowly the wolf’s mouth curved into a grin. Stiles’ expression soured from shock to rage and he raised one tiny finger imperiously to point at Derek.

“Don’t you dare laugh!”

The high, youth-slurred voice, along with Stiles’ eight-year-old rage, rendered Derek helpless to the snort that peeled out of him, chuckles soon following.

“Dammit Derek! What the hell is happening? What the hell even is this? What? Why is there some weird universe out there where I’m a baby and you’re the baby sitter? Do you perv on me or something because don’t think I haven’t noticed how we’re typically romantically involved in these things, except for the one with Jackson which was, eww, by the way- Derek? Derek?” Throughout Stiles’ mile-a-minute speech his mouth had gone dry. Now that he thought about it, they were romantically involved throughout the majority. What if he was the creepy babysitter?

What if he was a monster… or like Kate. Breath seemed to short out of him and Derek spun around, looking for an out, an escape. The glass back door was nearby and he lunged for it, heedless to Stiles’ cries and itching out of his skin as he morphed into the wolf.

The glass door gave way under his paws and Derek streaked off without a thought.

The world beyond the door was bright and backed onto deep, rich forests that he let his nose get tangled in.

Only as the more complex senses of his full shift overtook his emotions did Derek allow himself to calm, to feel the ground with his paws and scent the stream nearby with his nose.

That house he had left smelt like home. _Stiles_ , in that body though carrying his own scent, had smelt like his. But not in a bad way, in a protected sense. Like a child would. All of the times and places and scenarios they’d been dropped into looked and felt as real as his own.

Could they all be? Were his and Stiles’ consciousnesses just taking over momentarily in these bizarre alter-worlds?

He wouldn’t doubt the Nemeton’s power to do that, and the things he’d seen in his own reality defied all logic sometimes. Kate came back as a jaguar and controlled bone men. Peter was brought back from death by a highly-strung teenage banshee. Bitten wolves turned into kanimas and born wolves turned into real ones and Stiles the human turned into a fox.

His feet brought him round in a circle and back the way he had been running, panting softly as he gazed back, noticing the darker light and the deep moss scent around him. Derek was convinced of it, these realities were real, and for whatever reason he was stuck in a time loop with Stiles, but what that meant for this reality was that he’d left an adopted pup alone and defenceless as he tore around the woods.

Like an animal. Derek felt no shame of his wolf side, but since leaving his home in Beacon Hills he had noticed changes about himself. His emotions were closer to the surface. His ability to fully shift left him raw to instinct when he least expected it. He hadn’t felt this out of control in years, and their little stroll through worlds wasn’t helping him stay grounded and focused.

The only thing he did know was Stiles.

The thought was like a warm weight in him and Derek loped back with that firmly in place and instinctually accepted. Here, Stiles was his pack.

Only, as he returned, growling and spare at the sight of broken glass and small, bloody footprints, Stiles wasn’t where he’d left him.

When was Stiles ever in a sensible place?

Derek used his nose to track down his pack, roaming throughout the house until he stumbled up the stairs and into a bedroom with, well…

 _In this reality I need my head checked_. On the bed with Stiles were two small boys reminiscent in scent and looks of Scott and Isaac. Between them was a surprisingly tearful and shell-shocked looking Stiles.

“Derek?” Scott and Isaac had hid back at the sight of a wolf in the room. Derek nodded his head, it felt odd and he sat down to shift back. Before he could do more than start the change Derek had a lapful of Stiles in his oversized shirt, bloody feet soon smudging into Derek’s bare thighs to match his injured hands as the child climbed onto him.

“I’m sorry, I said something and I shouldn’t but I hate it here and I don’t know what’s going on and I can’t-“

“Shh.” The word was almost growled as Derek automatically curled his arms around Stiles and found a patch of skin on his neck to siphon the child’s pain from. In a lump Stiles relaxed into him, breathing out some last shred of anxiety and clinging to Derek with a grip too weary to belong to a child.

“Okay, you’re back. Its alright.” Derek didn’t know which one of them Stiles was comforting, but found himself relaxing and snuffling the soft hair under his nose regardless.

They’d have to sort Stiles’ feet, the same way they sorted his hands, but for a moment longer he let himself have this closeness, the feeling of depending and being depended on.

Wordlessly Stiles started to slump and struggle in his arms, sleep gripping his tiny body and Derek felt the pull too. How long had they been doing this for now? Could it be over a day?

If he didn’t know Stiles as well as he did, he might wonder how the human was still functioning, but this was nothing new to either of them.

Scott and Isaac were still staring at them, wide-eyed and vulnerable. In this reality he had the pack that he’d lost in his own. It hurt in a few more ways than one.

“You did good, looking after your brother.” The pair of them sat up and preened under the attention. “Go to sleep okay?” He stood up, Stiles fussily trying to get out of his arms but Derek could smell he was exhausted and in pain. The small, warm weight was familiar from the younger siblings he’d looked after before and instinctually felt like a trophy. Derek ruffled both the other boys’ hair purely to imagine the looks on their older-version’s faces if they ever found out, and helped them get under the covers of the single bed in the room.

There was a small bathroom next door but no first aid kit so he hunted through the house before finding one in what must have been the master bedroom. His bedroom.

Stiles had given up fighting by this time and sat sullenly on the bed, tired out, as Derek tended to his feet.

“You keep hurting yourself like this.” Derek mentioned, voice judgemental but not as much as it could have been. “What were you trying to do?” For a moment longer Stiles was quiet, heart tha-thumping along.

“I went out after you, then I saw those two coming down to see what the noise was and I ran back over to keep them from the glass. I didn’t notice it at first.” It went unsaid that he’d noticed it pretty quickly and painfully after that. The soft soles of his feet were cut and embedded with shards that Stiles had obviously tried to remove most of. Derek cleared out the rest with tweezers and looked a bit helplessly at the various things in the first aid box until Stiles sighed and grabbed it.

The feet were wiped and bandaged with a proficient haphazardness that spoke of too much practise and not enough care. Derek said nothing, silently packing the kit away and removing it.

By the time he got back, Stiles was rubbing tired eyes and Derek effortlessly scooped him up, depositing the squawking boy down under the covers and curling around him as a wolf.

“Oh my god you’re fluffy.” Stiles snuggled into his coat as Derek grumbled at him, resenting the term ‘fluffy’. “Shush yourself sourwolf. You caused me this pain, now I’m gonna get mine.” Derek huffed, but let Stiles hug one of his back legs and tail close to use as a pillow. Resting his large head by Stiles’ feet, under the dark of the covers, Derek occasionally licked at the exposed toes until Stiles’ giggled and kicked him accidentally in the snout.

Even with that stinging pain, Derek found himself more content than he had been in years, and fell asleep. Neither noticed the world shifting around them.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sirs? Excuse me… Sirs!” Derek struggled awake at the nudge to his shoulder, fighting off a weight that was on him only to send Stiles slumping out of his seat and to the floor with a flailing jolt of long limbs.

“Um, if you would follow me, the doctor’s ready.” The black woman seemed familiar as someone Derek had seen whilst he lurked around the high school, especially with her dramatic roll of eyes. “That is, if you’re both done sleeping.” Stiles, wiping some drool off his face and still looking barely there, simply responded with ‘What?’ Clearly this didn’t please the lady, who gestured them to follow her with a clipboard. “I’ll bring you both some coffee when you’re in there.”

Sufficient motivation for movement in place, Stiles wobbled to his feet, Derek following him, muscles tensed where he’d been so relaxed falling asleep. He’d seen Stiles change bodies during this escapade, yes. He himself had woken up with a pole through his stomach at one point. But it was another thing entirely to have the nemeton switch him from his fur to his skin so casually. Derek felt half stuck between the two, out of rhythm without completing the change from beast to man himself.

The corridor lights seemed too bright and the walls too narrow as they walked along. With a couple of brisk knocks they were flapped into a room.

“Here you go.” Clearly the woman had given up on them, pointing to two seats in front of a desk. Neither man moved however.

“Derek, Stiles. Welcome, please take a seat. Today will be your third session of couples’ counselling I believe.” Deaton. The man just raised an eloquent eyebrow and gestured at the seats again.

Numbly, Derek pushed Stiles forward till they sunk down into plush leather chairs, both mulish and wary.

“Now, to recap our previous sessions, we’ve talked about how you two met…” Deaton carried on, relating details about another fantasy life that left the two men shell shocked.

“So, what would you like to talk to me about today?” Neither said anything. “Speak up, don’t be shy, this is a safe place for both of you-“

“Look I really don’t think we need counselling.” Stiles mashed out in a sticky, awkward voice, looking around for the door as he pushed himself up in his seat. Deaton chuckled.

“It’s common to get cold feet at this stage. Now there’s obviously a reason you two sought counselling, and you both obviously agreed to come.” There was a pause as Deaton looked between them before setting unsettling eyes on Derek. “Derek, you set up these sessions, why don’t you start?” Stiles turned to him with a gasp and mock-affronted face.

“You bastard, you ratted us out to a therapist?” Derek spluttered out a laugh that he managed to mutate into a coughing fit, partly at Deaton’s actually shocked expression.

“There’s no need for that language Stiles.”

“Fuck me there isn’t.”

“Does your husband’s attitude towards therapy upset you Derek? Do you feel he doesn’t take things seriously?” Derek schooled himself back to normal.

“Stiles takes things too seriously.”

“Ah, so do you feel worn down? Overly critiqued-“

“Hey whoa whoa whoa!” Stiles cut in, leaning forwards and smacking a hand down on Deaton’s desk. “No way am I becoming the bad guy here, no one is making me the bad guy!”

“Stiles no one in this room is going to be ‘the bad guy’-“

“Damn straight Doc. ‘Cause let me tell you, this guy?” Stiles jerked his thumb at Derek, who felt his stomach drop. “Has anger management issues, Ohh-yeah! Big time! Can’t get his way, growls, still can’t, pushes you into a wall and I-“

“Derek, are you physically violent with your husband?”

“No!” Derek shouted. Stiles sat back, shocked and blinking at the strained and worried face of Deaton. “No.” He tries, calmer. “I wouldn’t hurt Stiles, even when he’s an annoying little shit.” Derek finished, turning to glare at his ‘husband’. Stiles had the ring on and everything. So did Derek.

“Annoying- _you’re_ annoying!” Stiles burst out with, face flushed with some sour-smelling emotion like embarrassment or shame. “First you run off with your sister without a word goodbye, real smooth! Then you come back, bat-shit crazy uncle in tow – thanks for bringing him back, by the way, couldn’t wait to see him again! Then I have one of the worst times in my life and you leave-“ Stiles’ voice breaks and he takes a minute to breathe and focus himself. “And then, again, it happens again and then you go. _Again_! And then it’s bad again and everyone is back, Chris is even back and, there’s all these things happening…” Stiles’ voice is hitching and he quiets himself, reverting back into his chair red-faced and bright eyed, biting his lips as if to prevent another outburst or even tears.

“…You had Scott-“ But Stiles was already shaking his head, one hand going to rub his right shoulder in a reflexive looking gesture, not meeting anyone’s eyes. The silence looms for a few moments with only the young man’s rough breathing marring it until Deaton gathers his words and empathetic expression.

“That’s a lot of expression Stiles, thank you. Are your feelings of abandonment still strong?” Stiles is shaking his head, but it’s as if he doesn’t really know what he’s disagreeing to. “Would you-“

The snarl is out of him before he’s fully anticipated it, rounding on Deaton with a show of teeth that have the man’s eyes widening if not much else. For a moment he recalls how it felt to have his hand around the man’s throat, squeezing, and it gives him a curling pleasure.

“Derek, I’m only trying to help you two.” Stiles manages to snort this time, though he doesn’t hide the laughter like Derek did. The fact that he can still smell the salt from Stiles’ reigned back tears and can see his hands trembling makes pulling back from the violent thoughts harder than ever. He’s never had them feel so pleasing.

“I need to roam a lot. I’m a lone wolf.” Stiles _does_ laugh this time, much to Derek’s pleasure, full on from his belly and doubling over slightly. One of his feet stomps on the ground in pleasure and the boy winces. Derek frowns, sniffing and able to scent the old blood.

Those wounds were carrying across in Stiles. His hands were still bandaged, no wonder Deaton was worried about Derek abusing him. The scent of blood rippled down his spine and Derek shook himself, what was wrong with him? His instincts hadn’t been this close to the surface since before he could control his shift.

“You keep hurting yourself.” Derek murmurs, hoping to only catch Stiles’ ears but Deaton picks it up anyway as Stiles looks at his feet with a grimace.

“S’not my fault.”

“Cutting yourself with glass _is your fault_. You’re always doing this, always were doing this. Rushing into things, throwing yourself into dangerous situations. It would be brave if you weren’t so ignorant about your health. Or so clumsy. You’re a walking health hazard and then you nearly _died_ and now it’s like you don’t have any fear at all. You just keep, hurting, yourself.” Derek ground the last three words out, fighting to keep the claws in as his anger rose. Stiles had changed. He was still bright, still clever, but there was less problem solving and more lunging into the quickest, easiest and often most violent path… Derek _hated_ it. Especially given that he could relate.

“…Are you doing this regularly?” The question is cautious, Deaton’s voice suspiciously slow and calm as he reached a hand out to Stiles. Belatedly, Derek realised how that must have sounded and his head shot up along with Stiles’.

“That’s not-“

“No! No, hey, no I don’t do that I just have a, uh, a dangerous lifestyle!” Stiles laughed nervously, glancing strangely at Derek who had gone tight-lipped. This was going from bad to horrific.

Marriage must be exhausting.

“Ah, yes, I remember you’re a member of the police force aren’t you.”

“I’m a cop! No way that’s awesome!” Stiles pumped his fist and the paper Deaton had just been checking slipped from his lax fingers as the man continued to stare blankly at Stiles. “Hey! Hey what’s Derek?” Stiles leaned over and snatched the file. Derek leaned over despite himself.

“Artist! _Yes_! That’s where we get the money honey! You weren’t lying Derek you must be good.”

“Not bad yourself.” Derek muttered, pulling the file over to himself curiously to look at where they actually were in the world. “…We live in _Maine_?”

“I’m just going to get us some water.” Deaton hedged as he sat up and warily walked around them, keeping the couple in his sights at all times. “Won’t be a minute.”

The door shut behind him and Stiles threw the paper back roughly where it had been.

“Dude, Deaton? _Deaton_ is our therapist? No wonder we’re still in therapy. Man wouldn’t give a straight answer if he was reciting from a text book.”

Derek couldn’t help but agree, though he didn’t half wonder if they were about to be sectioned and put under more therapy after that meeting.

“What if we’re stuck here until we’re in marital bliss?” Stiles’ pondering was followed by a quick, unsubtle check out of Derek, complete with flush. Derek couldn’t help sniffing out the arousal in the room and smirked whilst Stiles studiously ignored both the man and his own last comment. He wondered if Stiles had been with a man yet. Derek himself had only been with a couple, back when memories of Kate had still made women unbearable to look at but he’d had the hormones of a growing teenager.

It had been fun, good.

The imagined feeling of _Stiles_ under his hands, frantic and eager and moaning through wet red lips put even his real experiences to shame.

“I think,” Both men jumped at the return of Deaton. Derek felt his eyes flash. “That we both know there is something else going on here. Though I don’t doubt that the both of you could do with some counselling of your own, I’d rather not waste my real clients’ time.” The man took a seat back at his desk, glasses of water in hand, and with a rapid swish splashed the fluid at the pair of them.

Derek heard Stiles squawk before flashes and blurs of images and sound overwhelmed his mind.

Seeing Stiles at the museum, wide-eyed. Globs of paint on a brush, Stiles clinging to him as a child, more more more until all he could see was a rapid edit of their world travelling and all he could hear was a thousand-voice whisper of ‘ _find each other keep finding each other_ ’.

“Enough.” The onslaught died down and Derek bent his head to his knees, shaking his head as his hands covered his ringing ears. Beside him Stiles was panting and clutching the arms of the chair. “My my, what a predicament.”

“Yeah, we got that one. Thanks.” Stiles snapped back, regaining his balance. Derek sat up too, giving Deaton another snarl in payment for the nasty trick.

“Hmm. I think I prefer the versions I have in my time to the pair of you… And they came to me the first time _drunk_ ,” Deaton pointed to Derek, “And covered in what I am quite positive was blood.” Deaton jabbed the finger at Stiles.

Derek noted that Stiles took a moment to actually look proud of them, slapping the older man with the back of his hand to the shoulder and giving him a cocky wink. Derek shook his head before speaking up.

“Cute. If that’s all you have to say, we’re leaving. You can forget a check.” Derek started to stand, Stiles following him hastily when Deaton spoke again.

“I don’t know how long you’ll be trapped like this, magic of this nature works in mysterious ways, but you should be returned when it feels you have reached a profound enough enlightenment.” They both turned back, frowning.

“And how do we do that?” Stiles asked, less hostile and more flummoxed. Deaton offered one of his enigmatic half smiles.

“Well the rules were to ‘keep finding each other’ were they not?”

“Yeah but we’ve-“

“It might mean a combination of literally finding, as you did in the maze, or something more ephemeral. Finding a connection of sorts as you travel along.”

The blank look Stiles shot Derek seemed apt to cover his own thoughts.

“So… we…” With a frown Stiles cut himself off, brain ticking away but not spinning out any epiphany that Derek could see. The doctor behind them sighed in a pained way and began clearing up his desk.

“I would suggest to my couples in therapy that they go back to the early stages in their relationship and try to rekindle some shared interests, try some new things together… But, since you two clearly don’t need therapy…” Deaton left it at that. Stiles flushed and looked almost guiltily at Derek.

“What?” The wolf retorted.

“Dude we totally sound like we need therapy.”

“I am not sitting here and paying for therapy and talking to a witch doctor about _feelings_!” Stiles flailed in agreed protest for a moment.

“Oh, dude, so there with you, same train same carriage same seat, I’m all over your lap like a napkin.” Derek had to blink a few times to clear both the image and the word-nado from his brain.

“Then, what?” Stiles took a breath.

“Something in common. We find it, run with it, if that doesn’t work we’ll try bonding over bowling. So, favourite colour?”

“Green.”

“Too bad mine’s red. Favourite author? God please say J. K. Rowling.”

“Pass.”

“Fine sourwolf favourite artist? Wait you didn’t answer, oh my God it is J. K. Rowling!”

“ _Pass_!”

“Alright tough sell. Favourite animal?”

“What do you think?”

“Well I like flamingos. I bet they’re adorable were-creatures. Favourite food.”

“Steak.”

“Predictable. Mine’s a burger. Favourite fries?”

“Straight.”

“God what is _wrong_ with you! Okay!” Stiles clapped his hands. “For this one there is only one right answer.” To illustrate Stiles spread his hands with and held up both index fingers. “Would you rather have…” The pause for dramatic effect had Derek gesturing, both with eyebrows and hands, to speed this along. “… Fingers for toes, or toes for fingers.”

It wasn’t even phrased like a question. Regardless, as the words sunk in, Derek slowly looked down at his hands. And tried to imagine toes.

“Fingers for toes.”

“Ding ding ding we have a winner! Same, good, great, we’re peas in a fucking pod, lets get out of here.” Stiles marched over and clapped Derek on the back, helping to propel him to and through the door as the wolf kept looking back at his hands, at Stiles’ hands, unable to shake the disturbing images of stubby toes coming from their palms out of his head.

“Not quite what I had in mind-“ Deaton’s words were cut of by the slam of the door and the simultaneous crack of reality.

______________

 

The world around them was a strip the same as there would be in any town or city, shop fronts proclaiming their goods and people strolling around casually.

“Stiles, get us out of here.” The teen looked up at the words, taking in Derek’s grim, slightly pale expression. The sentiment was mutual, but Derek turning to him for answers left Stiles refreshed and with his chest inflating. A nice change from his general all-over fatigue.

“Okay, lets see what we’ve got.” They ventured a short way down the strip, Stiles frowning as he saw a pattern in the shops either side of them. A good fifty percent were tattoo parlours, and it seemed like not a person on the street went without a tattoo or five. “That’s odd, that’s…”

“What?” Derek was a regular grouch wolf today.

“See on the shops? Look at what they’re all offering.” Because each and every tattoo boutique Stiles could see proclaimed to provide ‘Soul bond Tattoos’.

“I don’t see how that helps us. Odd, but useless.”

“No no, listen, so, you and me need to keep finding each other, like finding your soul mate right?”

“Stiles, we’re not-“

“Yeah I know that but whilst the nemeton fucks around with us it’s just me and you getting transported around right? So, it’s moving our souls around. Together. Therefore;” For end effect Stiles waved a hand towards their nearest parlour, which helpfully read ‘Get closer to finding your way with time-dated Soul bond tattoos, guaranteed to match to that special someone in your life’.

Derek’s hazel eyes gradually widened as comprehension dawned.

“So you’re saying if we get tattoos, and they, what, match?” Stiles nodded along, encouragingly. “That we get to move on from this time?”

“At least to the next place, yeah. And there’s even one over there offering to do the same for ‘supernatural creatures’, whatever that means, so you should be covered too… with your freaking blow torch.” Finally, Derek cracked a toothy grin at that.

“And you? Scott told me you fainted-“

“Alright! Meet back here when you’re done, remember to ask them for the tattoo to help you find who you need to, or something.” Stiles checked his pockets, miraculously, for money, which he had, and turned to go.

“Wait, what if they don’t match?” Stiles shook away the niggling doubt that Derek’s words brought and turned around nonchalantly.

“Then we’ve still had a shared experience, still counts right?”

Derek looked dubious, but Stiles didn’t stick around to find out, he’d only have the guts to do this for so long.

But desperate times called for desperate measures, and so he sat there fainting whilst a heavily tattooed Lydia Martin instructed him to turn till she could get to the back of his neck and proceeded to drill into it with painted needles.

“Take lots of rest and eat a lot of sugar tonight okay sweetheart?”

“Okay.” Stiles mumbled. Still pretty out of it and shaky, holding a bag of tattoo care stuff and a discount voucher.

On the back of his neck he now sported a paw print with the face of a wolf inside, eyes peering out bright and blue within the pads and fur shaded so thickly that the whole thing probably just cost him a pint of blood.

He had a wolf tattooed on him. A pretty badass one at that. It put Scott’s two rings to shame… but the fact alone that Lydia’s tattoo mumbo jumbo knew to put a wolf on him was slightly telling.

It even looked like Derek’s furrier side. Exactly like it. The knowledge that he was parading a mini picture of Derek around on him, and that he’d have to show the man, left his guts clenching. He didn’t have long to wait however, before Derek was walking slightly warily towards him.

“Done?”

“Yep.” Stiles replied, fidgeting. Derek was just staring at him.

“Show me then.”

“You first.” Anything to bide more time. If Derek had Stiles’ face over his heart of something, then he could show Derek the wolf… if the man had come out with some homage to a busty blonde, well, Stiles was going to run away screaming.

Derek hesitated in a way that set Stiles’ teeth on edge, wrapped up in a nice bow when the man said “Don’t freak out” and turned around, puling his shirt collar down.

Stamped on Derek’s neck was a handprint, with a fox looking out of it. Some part of the world narrowed and darkened around Stiles, seeing the fox looking back at him, through a handprint that could have been his, as if it was _inside_ him.

Derek moved around him whilst the teen stood staring with slightly wide eyes, pulling down Stiles’ own shirt.

The older man’s eyes must have landed on the wolf because wind ripped up around them and for once Stiles enjoyed the crushing feeling it brought with it.

_____________

 

There was a mark. He’d made his claim, not just on the being’s skin but also on their soul. It was calling to the inner reaches of him now, pulling him on.

The night was dark and damp around him, scents strong in the air. The old house nearby stood tall and imposing as the trees lashed around it in the wind. The sound was almost like howling and Derek lifted his muzzle in response, a long, wavering cry spiking through the frenzied air.

He had to find the marked one.

_Stiles, he’s called Stiles, remember!_ But the instinct was too strong, and even as the rationale fought to the top, swiftly Derek realised that he couldn’t fight the animal within.

The mark he’d seen on himself had been a fox within a hand. But on Stiles, on Stiles it was just a wolf in a paw print. There had been no humanity, no man there, just the beast.

Now, sinking deep into the comfort of his own instincts, Derek couldn’t shift back, couldn’t focus his mind beyond the one thought the whole of him shared. Find Stiles. Find the one he’d marked.

[](http://imgur.com/B1qxilE)  
An ungodly howl woke Stiles, he found sheets trapping him and twisted around his legs like a snare. The room was odd, old, and he was wearing some ancient looking nightshirt. Derek was nowhere to be seen…

But that howl.

Was he out there? Why were they separated? Why was the noise sending spasms up his back? Shaking off the thoughts Stiles grabbed the honest to god candle on the table beside his ruined, sweat stained bed and sat up. Between his legs the nightshirt was peaked treacherously and Stiles cursed his timing.

Now was not an appropriate moment for happy Stiles time. Even if the sheets were silky smooth and the gown he wore soft from regular use.

Derek. He had to find Derek. Wherever the hell they were now.

Stiles struggled out of bed and forced some way too tight leggings over his erection. There were no shoes in the room and the house was outrageously large and creaked wherever he moved. Finally he found some boots by what must have been the back door and shoved his feet on them, hearing that howl again.

Derek had turned into a wolf before now so the howl wasn’t surprising, though having gotten used to Scott’s roar the wailing sound left him uneasy. Maybe Derek couldn’t get to Stiles, so he was howling to signal his location.

Either way, the large house didn’t contain Derek, so outside it was.

Wind buffeted him outside the door and Stiles tramped over uneven, stiff grass and divots with occasional scrub snaring at him. The candle battled bravely against the wind under the protection of Stiles’ hand but soon that gave up too, leaving him in eerie near pitch black, and completely lost.

“Alright, maybe not the best plan. Derek! Derek where are you!” His voice seemed carried away on the wind and his cut feet ached in the boots, stinging with every step. “A howl would be good buddy!”

But there was no answering howl, and Stiles was beginning to question his decision to go outside. There was no telling it was Derek out here. At least the worry had killed his hard on.

Stiles felt it before he heard it. The shivering in his neck turned bone deep, hair pricking up in response to what became a low, continuous growl rising in volume. With a shiver his breath stopped, freezing in place like a rabbit. Gulping once, Stiles turned his head slowly, heart jack hammering around in adrenaline.

“Derek?” The word came out soft, and was met by a snarl.

Instinct gripped him and this time Stiles lunged into a sprint, dashing forwards like some hunted thing with a litany of curses rolling around his brain.

He didn’t make it fifty meters. There was the sound of paws behind him, a wrecked howl and all the air was punched out of him with a body colliding with his.

The world began to crack and Stiles was still held tight, heat pounding into him and what must be Derek growling in his ear. Fur reverted to skin but Stiles could feel the pin pricks of claws more keenly than the wind rushing around him. All the blood in him seemed to be pooling south.

__________

 

Disorientated Stiles found himself face-first and naked as sin on a giant stump, still held tight by Derek’s panting, growling form and bathed in heat.

“Mine.” Derek’s clawed hand met the tattoo Stiles knew to be on his neck and he whimpered a little helplessly and the thought, stomach tightening as his thighs trembled. He wasn’t wearing anything, and the scent of the tree beneath him was heady and familiar, sending his brain spinning.

The nemeton.

He didn’t have much more time to think about that because Derek’s _fangs_ were grazing his shoulder and he wriggled at the half-pain half-tickle. Derek rumbled again and pressed his face into Stiles’ neck, inhaling long and deep. Stiles’ brain shuttered off as he felt the lumpiness and furred sideburns from Derek’s half-shifted form, felt one clawed hand skate down his body between where it was pressed to the stump by Derek’s weight.

“Oh god, oh fff-“ That hand was large and demanding and squeezing around his junk, clawed fingers snagging on sensitive skin and he couldn’t move back or into it, just had to lie there panting and jerking abortively as his dick chubbed up under the attention. Derek’s tongue began licking his neck and mouthing it with fangs and Stiles stretched out to bare his throat, something inside him telling him that this was good and he needed it and…

And he felt empty, down there like, like he needed something in him.

Stiles fought some of his limbs free with effort and reached back to cup his own ass, fingers teasing his entrance with a low moan.

Derek stopped and sat back, one hand still holding Stiles’ dick and balls, squeezing occasionally in an instinctual rhythm so casually that the boy thought he might die. Stiles looked back to see Derek watching him, eyes dark in his shifted face, teeth on display. He looked rapturous and fierce and Stiles wanted all of it on a level so deep it didn’t even feel like him.

“Hey, hey Derek? Are you o-“ The word became a shout as Derek went down faster than a freight train and started licking around Stiles’ fingers, his ass, _biting_.

His hand was swiped away with a sting of claws cutting into him but Stiles couldn’t think when Derek then licked firmly over his aching hole. Stiles’ brain shuddered and he cried out as Derek’s tongue slipped in and pushed, licking, dripping saliva and wet and hot and wiggling into him.

Stiles _liked_ it. He liked it a lot and it was more than his fingers had ever done for himself. Almost too much as Derek forced his tongue deeper, burning the muscles and then slapped a hand on Stiles’ neck as he kicked out in a move to half get away.

He couldn’t think, Derek’s other hand had left his groin and was spreading his cheeks apart, the man’s face buried in his ass and licking into him. Just when he thought he might sob at the feeling Derek pulled back, dragging Stiles’ hips up and spitting into his hole.

“Oh fuck.” The words were more of a whimper as Stiles felt the gob of spit slide into his spasming hole and clenched around it involuntarily. Derek let out something reminiscent of a purr and spat again, Stiles taking it in like a champ and shuddering at the filthy feeling.

“Good.” The low rumble heated his core and Stiles bit his lip on a moan. Derek took the time to reposition them; his hand left Stiles’ neck, replaced by the man’s mouth taking hold of either side of his throat with almost enough pressure to break the skin. Taloned hands gripped his hips hard enough to squeeze the bones and nipped into his flesh with stings of pain.

Something, well, only one thing it could be really, pushed in between Stiles’ cheeks and spread them with a worrying girth. He lost the ability to breathe as Derek just started humping along Stiles’ crack, brushing over his hole and hitting his tight balls. With Derek’s mouth around his throat, Stiles stayed limp and where he had been put, breath starting to ratchet up as the wolf’s cock head caught on his hole and pushed in.

Wordless noise left his mouth at the stretch. Stiles wasn’t used to more than fingers, and even that sparingly, but even he knew this was not enough prep.

Derek’s cock, dripping itself, bulged into his entrance and stretched to the point of burning until it popped in over the glands. Shaking, he clenched around it, panting hard and sweating now. His back was slippery against Derek’s sweaty chest and the man growled in a pained way, hips twitching forwards but holding back.

Christ. Whatever was happening, he was having sex with Derek. The man was inside him and now pushing further and stretching him open, loosing the fight to wait.

Coherent thought left Stiles, consumed by Derek pushing in, pausing to readjust his grip and in a wild flare of pain he was filled to the brim with a heavy, hot cock.

Stiles felt shaky and aroused despite his flagging erection, Derek settled snugly inside him and let out a pleased noise and although it hurt it was like a missing piece had been, well, slotted in, so to speak.

When Derek pulled back Stiles whined and flailed back till he could grip Derek’s back, thigh, anywhere he could reach and hold the man into him, tightening around him.

His body was shaken with a small growl and Derek bit a bit harder at his neck before pulling back and thrusting in hard enough to make Stiles see stars. Stiles’ hands dropped to clutching Derek’s at his hips and the wolf squeezed slightly and set up camp driving into Stiles.

The pace was punishing and pushed Stiles across the miraculously smooth wood. The feeling of Derek leaving and filling him mixed with wet sounds and his own erection returning, dripping, until Derek pulled all the way out of him.

Stiles may have sobbed, hips jerking still as he was spun over and Derek was between his legs, forcing them up and licking at Stiles again until he shuddered and came, hard, over his own chest.

In the midst of his high Derek pulled Stiles back roughly onto his cock and pumped his hips mindlessly till there had to be supernatural strength involved because the movement was so fast it felt like he was bruising and vibrating. Derek bit into his neck again and Stiles clung on for dear life, soothing Derek with shushes when the man growled, pulling out too far and jabbing against Stiles’ buttock to get back in. Derek took a few more puppy-like hard thrusts to line back in again before he sunk back into Stiles’ hole and snugged himself in there to thrust hard and deep with shallow motions, growling, biting.

“It’s okay, its okay Derek, its okay,” The words whispered out of him and Derek clawed Stiles down flush against himself hard, bending the teen in two and grinding into him.

At first Stiles didn’t notice the difference, but then Derek seemed to swell in him, the base of his cock in particular and Stiles tried to inch back around the growing girth but to no avail. Derek snarled at him and resettled the teen, popping back in what Stiles had dislodged and rolling his hips.

The growls in Stiles’ ear increased, the cock in him swelled to the point of punishing pain yet pleasure as it pressed on his prostate and he thought he would burst until with a half groan half yelp Derek jolted in him and heat engulphed him from the inside out as Derek came.

The sheer amount seemed ridiculous and Stiles wriggled and panted, holding onto Derek with weakening limbs as pressure filled him up from the inside and Derek relentlessly ground against him, sated and happy as he pumped Stiles full of come.

Heavy and full, Stiles just rested his sweaty head on Derek and barely heard the crack around them.

_____________

 

Derek managed to push away the last remnants of the wolf and come back to himself whilst still buried in Stiles’ tight, sopping ass. Knotted in so firmly that he knew it would be a while before they untied.

He’d only knotted twice before in his life, and now he’d tied off on Stiles.

Stiles, who was naked beneath him, on a park bench, legs over Derek’s shoulders as the wolf knelt, firmly stuck and fully clothed save for his dick enclosed in Stiles’ heat.

The boy was flushed and sweaty and exhausted looking, hard and painfully so and fluttering open long eyelashes to meet his gaze.

Derek couldn’t look away.

“S’okay sourwolf, don’t look so terrified.” Derek huffed, despite himself.

“I don’t.”

“You do.” Stiles half-laughed, tired out and squirming a bit. The effect was so endearing to Derek on a soul deep level that he could have died.

“Your mine.” The words were unbidden and Stiles’ wide eyes met his.

“Y-yeah?” This wasn’t the time, or the place, and how could he be feeling so sure but there was no denying the instinct behind the words. He wanted Stiles. And he wanted him for himself. That wasn’t easy to say however, but there was no fear in Stiles’ scent, no worry… only arousal and excitement.

“Yeah.” The barest hint of a grin lit Stiles’ face before the boy flinched at something over Derek’s shoulder.

Snapping his head around Derek came face-face with a man taking a picture. In the street, there were other people walking by, some watching, some not, some naked. By a shop front a way off, a middle-aged man was hammering into a woman without anyone giving a damn.

“Just one for the collection, hope you don’t mind.”

And the man walked away.

Derek looked back to Stiles, doubly flushed and mouth agape. Without a thought he flung himself over the boy, back prickling with unease and protectiveness.

“I’m sorry, it’ll go down.” Stiles nodded, but his erection notably wasn’t drooping and the younger man was beginning to squirm winningly on Derek’s knot. “What are you doing?”

“I really need to come okay! Just, what even is this? Christ I don’t even care, just touch me.”

“Here? Like this?” Derek confirmed, frowning. Stiles flapped at him.

“Yes! No one else cares, and I’m dying here, and you don’t get to judge me!”

No, after he’d just jumped Stiles’ bones, despite the boy’s enthusiasm and whatever the nemeton’s pull had done to him, and knotted him of all things, Derek wasn’t going to judge.

So he did the decent thing. Wrapped his hand around Stiles’ dick, rolled his hips and bit at his neck. Stiles gasped and then when Derek curled a hand around his hip to take the pain away from the claw marks, the knotting and the bite the boy came hard with a convulsion that tugged Derek painfully and a mewl that left his dick twitching within the boy.

Sometime around Stiles’ come down and the normally hyperactive human falling asleep, Derek’s knot went down and he slipped out with a small grunt from Stiles.

The boy was a mess, covered in cuts from Derek’s claws and bruises. Sloppy and gaping between his thighs where he was leaking with Derek’s spend and a bit of blood. His feet and hands were bandaged, and Derek took a moment to admire the person before him.

One of his hands stroked up Stiles’ flank as a sense of peace settled within him. The one person he couldn’t get rid of, couldn’t scare away or put off… had relied on relentlessly and knew some of his worst moments. You couldn’t get rid of Stiles; he was like static in the air and the solid ground all at once.

Someone Derek could rely on, and be welcomed by. Someone who relied on him.

There was trust, and there was want, but beyond that Derek felt a deep kinship that came from hard times and hard fights and great successes, interspersed with the everyday nonsense that makes you fall for someone over time.

Maybe Stiles wasn’t his, not yet, not properly in this nemeton-inspired nightmare, but Derek wanted him to be.

To be each other’s.

To be home.

_______________

 

At this point, Stiles was starting to think they’d never get home. And that was a problem, a real problem. As fun as warping around the universe with Derek was, it was exhausting, and he wanted to go home.

Time wasn’t easy to measure here, but since he and Derek had, well, expressed certain intimacies with each other. In each other. All over some bench in public… Anyway- Stiles had found himself handcuffing Derek in their next world; and how awesome was it that he’d been a cop twice now? On the flip side he’d had to make dinner for Derek’s squalling children that he was apparently ‘baby sitter’ of and then the pair of them had been stuck in a car on a road trip to god knows where for a few hours.

He was exhausted, and he was terrified.

What was his Dad doing? How long had they been gone? What if they never got back and were trapped doing this forever, never having their own lives and catching odd glimpses of other ones? The tattoo on the back of his neck prickled, and his feet and hands hurt. Stiles didn’t know where half his bruises had come from, other than the ones around his hips matching Derek’s claws.

He didn’t know the last time he’d eaten, or slept, or even just drank something.

So really, when he came to to find himself swaying in a dried, ploughed field, hunger raking through his bones and throat too dry to swallow, it didn’t take the teen too long to feel the spots swarming his vision.

Panic rolled up in his chest and caught there, leaving him choking on air as his vision tunnelled. Was this it? Had his soul and body travelled too far? Would he never see his Dad, Scott, Lydia, all his friends, again? Where was Derek?

Heart thundering out of control and body itching in anxiety, Stiles didn’t remember hitting the ground as he passed out.

[](http://imgur.com/B1qxilE)  
Nightmares were real. Not only was Derek sitting in a horse-drawn coach with yet another inexcusably laced outfit surrounding him. But opposite him was Kate’s smirking face.

The woman he’d been hunting.

The woman he needed to _kill_.

“Derek? Sweetheart what’s wrong? You look like you can smell the peasants from in here.” Kate chortled at her own joke, reclining in her own bejewelled gown, hands gloved in dainty frills.

The growl Derek felt roll out of him came straight from his past. Kate’s eyes widened for a minute, and Derek took bare seconds to thank the nemeton for even this fake opportunity before his hands closed around her neck and tightened _tightened_. The struggling and pleas were lost to his ears until the deafening crack of her neck snapping sunk through him.

Only it wasn’t just Kate’s neck, it was the world around him. Panic gripped Derek in tight jaws, his own throat tightening because where was Stiles? They hadn’t found each other. _Where was Stiles_?

With a resounding jolt that unseated him, Derek was back in the carriage, face pale as Kate smirked at him.

“You look like you can smell the peasants from in here.” And there was her laugh again. Derek cast his wide-eyed gaze out the window, searching for something, anything to explain this. What if he’d broken the reality and would be stuck here forever in a coach with Kate-

It wasn’t until his eyes landed on a lump on the side of the road that Derek realised he’d been searching for Stiles. Subconsciously. Without pause he was out of the coach, not truly hearing it stop behind him as he sprinted to where Stiles lay crumpled and filthy and wheezily breathing on the road.

They must have driven right past him last time.

“Derek! What do you think you’re doing?”

Ignoring Kate and her irritation Derek pulled Stiles gently to him, careful to feel for pain but encountering only the scent of exhaustion.

“Derek!” Kate was leaning half out the carriage and gesturing with one gloved hand. Derek looked back at Stiles, seeing none of the pretty picture Kate had always sold him on. Stiles was dirty, sweaty, in poor clothes and hard working.

He’d gone and fallen for the opposite of Kate.

A small smug smile graced Derek at the thought of that and he curled Stiles carefully into his arms before lifting the limp body. Weariness chased through his veins and for once it seemed that he could feel Stiles’ weight.

Their little adventure was getting old. If even Derek was getting worn out Stiles must be struggling.

“Hey! Derek-“

“Make room.” He started back towards the carriage decisively. “I need to get him to a hospital.”

“A hospital- Derek, what are you saying? Stop!” Kate’s affront shot up as Derek made to get into the coach and she physically blocked him.

Even in an alternate reality, Kate was such a pain.

“Move.”

“You’re not putting that thing in here, I’m not going to ride with it.” Derek felt that his eye-roll was sufficient in conveying his lack of care. It was hard to take Kate seriously, to feel a true threat from her, when they were both wearing petticoats. The driver on the top of the coach fought back a smirk. Was that Isaac? “You’ll have to drive off without me.” Kate stepped from the carriage, shoes sinking into some mud, and stood smug and sure of herself. Derek’s lip curled.

“Fine.” Stiles’ heart was rabbitting against his chest and Derek wasted precious little time in getting into the coach and shutting the door.

“I mean it Derek!” There was some morsel of fear in her eyes now that was almost more delicious than the bitch’s neck snapping.

“I don’t care.” He settled with Stiles on his lap and tapped the top of the coach.

“You can’t be serious! You can’t do this to me!” Kate panicked, grabbing at the side of the coach. Amused despite his concern over Stiles and disgust at being near Kate, Derek stuck his head to look out the window and up at Isaac.

“Whose carriage is this?”

“Yours sir.”

“That’s what I thought. Drive on.” Isaac seemed to enjoy easing the chestnut horses into a trot far too much and Derek sat back, listening to Kate’s shouts of outrage as they pulled away and left her stranded.

The whole thing left him with the relaxed warmth of peace filling his soul, this time relaxed when reality shifted.

______________

 

Thunderous booms around him that shook the earth roused Stiles. He was pressed up against something warm but scratchy, like coarse clothing. The air around him was thick like an enclosed space.

“You awake?” He fought his head upright, vision swimming a little.

“Yeah. Derek?” Wherever they were, it was pitch black. With his brain coming back online the noises solidified into a sickeningly knowable whizz-boom and shake that every war movie replicated to spine curling effect.

“Hey, its okay.”

“But, what, where-“ Sitting up with his head spinning Stiles tried to gather his bearings, only to be pulled back against Derek’s chest, one hand hot over his heart.

“Easy. We’re, I don’t know really, but there’s no way out. I guess we’ll just have to endure it.”

“Strangely, not helping me calm down.” Within the cage of arms that Stiles really didn’t want to fight out of, he searched himself, finding thick army layers and straps for holding equipment, metal helmets lying nearby. Derek was dressed the same.

“Great, a tree sent us back to the World Wars. Well that’s just delightful.” Derek just grunted and pulled Stiles in closer. The sound of the bombs wouldn’t stop and Stiles’ skin felt like it was tightening with each explosion. “What are we gonna do?” At his whispered words, Derek turned Stiles around more till he could feel the other man’s breath on his neck, curling their bodies together.

Gladly he clung back, clutching onto the fabric of Derek’s collar as he snaked a hand around the man’s warm neck, feeling the pulse beneath his palm.

The rhythmic throb steadied him somewhat.

“We’ve done enough. I’ve got you, that has to be enough.”

For some reason the last sentence sounded like a question, and Stiles let himself pause and think. Not about his Dad, not about his friends or what on earth the nemeton wanted from them…

If this was all they had…

“Its enough for me… Having you here, I mean, a friend, maybe more. Hopefully more. That sex was hot-“ Derek snorted into his hair, shoulders shaking with chuckles. “-And as long as the only reason you’re still hugging me isn’t some magic tree because something more then this might be pretty great?”

His own question wasn’t so subtle, but he needed to hear it, needed to know that although his relationships always started in the worst of ways; in asylums and forced alternate realities, and that Derek’s always ended in the worst of ways, that together, maybe they could have something right.

“It isn’t, though the nemeton might have pushed us, but it isn’t anymore.” Stiles liked how they were just going to glaze right over the whole ‘let’s-not-talk-about-our-crazy-tree-forced-sex-or-anything’ thing, laughing to himself. They could cover that at home. If they got home. Then they could cover it. Multiple times and ways, on every surface in the house and a couple outside because that was kind of fun too-

“And I’m not hugging you.”

“Cuddling, whatever.”

“No-“

“Spooning, absolutely!”

“I’m not-“

“Smooshing? Glomping? Snuggling?”

“I’m _holding_ you.”

“Well that’s boring! How about puppy-piling?” He liked to imagine that Derek could see his grin in the dark, that that’s why he covered Stiles’ lips with his own and slowly pressed them together.

They stayed like that until the next explosion hit, closer.

Neither said a word about how they held the other tighter.

“If we get back, are you going to come back? Home?”

“To Beacon Hills?” Stiles nodded, one thumb stroking Derek’s neck as the wolf shifted him a bit closer.

“Aren’t you all going off to college soon?”

“Not yet. Besides, wolves like travelling with their pack, right?”

“Yeah, we do.” Derek took what seemed to be a deep sniff of Stiles’ neck, and the younger man let himself close his eyes.

They didn’t say anything else, waiting, clinging, for hours until the world split.

As if the nemeton had given them the chance to change their minds.

_____________

 

“Derek? What are you doing her- Stiles! What happened?” Blinking the bright light out of his eyes Derek let Stiles be pulled from him by his concerned father. The museum around them was lit with afternoon sun and the nemeton branch looked like it had never been touched. Derek sort of wanted to kick it, just in spite, but didn’t want to risk another trip through the looking glass. By the way Stiles was eyeing it up in between letting his Dad fuss over him, Derek guessed the feeling was mutual.

“I’ll explain it, Dad, just, not here?”

“You’re damn right not here, at the hospital. These look infested son and how does that even- you know what, never mind, lets go.” Derek’s gaze switched back to the pair of them, Stiles doggedly but sluggishly weaving out of his father’s iron grip till he was hugging the man, the Sheriff holding on right back. The vaguely confused look on his face was as familiar as Stiles’ desperate if slightly pale expression.

Something in Derek’s chest filled at the sight. This could be his, was as good as offered…

“Hey,” The sheriff turned to him, unhooking his arms from Stiles though maintaining a hold on his arm. “Is there room for one more?”

The Sheriff just eyed Derek appraisingly for a moment before nodding with a small smile. Stiles’ grin was ever so slightly smug, and no less blinding for it. Like a shot of whiskey for the soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!


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